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The Pope in the Nineteenth Century (1851)
The Pope in the Nineteenth Century - 1851 Author:Giuseppe Mazzini Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ON THE ENCYCLICA OF POPE PIUS IX. THOUGHTS ADDRESSED TO THE PRIESTS OF ITALY. I. The word of Pius IX. does not go forth from Rome. It would seem that he f... more »elt the impossibility of pronouncing his anathema upon liberty, his condemnation of the education of the human race, which is the continued tradition of the law and life of God upon earth, from the initiating city of two great epochs of progress to humanity ; from the city of eternal traditions, and of love. And this word, written by the side of the worst of the kings of Italy, is the word of a man who trembles and curses. The divorce between the world and him, between the people of believers, which is the true church, and the aristocracy which usurps its name, stands out in every syllable. Papacy has for many years lost the power to love or bless. It is now two years since Pius IX., moved by the grand spectacle of the resurrection of a people, pronounced a blessing upon Italy ; and that expression of love sounded so new and strange from the lips of a Pope, that all Europe imagined they saw a second era for Papacy, and pressed round the man who had pronounced the word, in an intoxication of enthusiasm, unknown in the history of later times. To-day, the amende is paid to monarchy. By the anger of an offended prince, and of a pontfff whose tiara is endangered, by the aversion to every popular movement which it displays, by its ready calumnies against reformers, and by its impotent quarrels with the press, the Encyclica of December 8th resembles that of August 15th, 1832, signed Gregory XVI. Restored, "by the arms of the Catholic Powers" to the lordship of the Roman States, Pius IX. acquits himself towards them, by intimating in the church's name, war to the peoples, to those who desire to ameliorate their fate, to Given ...« less